Will Kyiv’s Soviet Industrial Districts Survive? A Study of Transformation,Preservation,and Demolition of Industrial Heritage in Ukraine’s Capital

Prerevolutionary Kyiv (pre-1917)

Prerevolutionary Kyiv was a craft industry city, famous for its unique products. Iyevleva pointed out characteristic features of the city’s industrial complex at the turn of the century, such as continuous increases in the volume and diversification of industrial production. ³² She also mentioned the emergence of such exotic manufactures as companies producing vinyl records, oak extracts, and artificial ice. By 1912, the number of craftsmen in Kyiv was approximately 30,000 and comprised sixty specialties, exceeding the number of workers in factories by about twofold. ³³ As Ukraine was a primary grain producer for the Russian Empire, about 62 percent of all factories were occupied by the food industry, where mills produced almost half of the city’s total production. In 1912, there were ten such mills in Kyiv. ³⁴

The architecture and urban planning of Imperial-era Kyiv up to 1917 were largely determined by the city’s vibrant, but only lightly regulated, economic system, together with its political situation as a subsidiary province of Russia. The city’s hilly topography, lack of state ownership of land, and limited urban regulations for the placement of enterprises led to building locations being determined predominantly by landowners, resulting in a chaotic, fragmented urban pattern. The high price of land leasing for entrepreneurs forced them to place production in small parcels in the city area, sometimes very near to housing, or on the city’s outskirts, where land was cheaper but access more difficult. ³⁵ Another factor shaping development was the existence and proximity of water and rail transport. Overall, Kyiv’s historic development pattern, with palaces and monasteries on hilltops surrounded by residential development, dominated the shape of the city. Industrial enterprises played a secondary, infill spatial role along rail lines in the city’s valleys and along the Dnipro waterfront.

Soviet Kyiv (1917–1991) and the 1936 general plan

After a brief period of Ukrainian independence during the Russian Civil War (1918–1919), Kyiv became part of the constituent “republic” of Ukraine within the Soviet Union. The Soviet era, which lasted over seventy years, reshaped Kyiv from a craft-based, trading, lightly industrialized city into an industrial engine of the Soviet empire. After the October Revolution (1917), Soviet Kyiv began transforming into an industrial city where the food industry was no longer primary, giving way to machine-building, metallurgy, and construction. Almost all of contemporary Kyiv’s industrial areas were decreed in the Soviet era during the nation’s first two five-year plans (1928–1932 and 1933–1937). Prerevolutionary industrial areas were demolished or, if they remained, were appended to and altered; only a few buildings preserved their prerevolutionary form. ³⁶

In 1919, Kyiv lost its status as capital when Kharkiv (Russian Kharkov) was declared the new capital of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. By 1934, when Kyiv superseded Kharkiv to again become capital, the city was still developing according to “Temporary Building Regulations” by Pavel Khaustov, ³⁷ where industrial enterprises were marked post factum. There was as yet no general plan for the location of industry: industrial enterprises were located on an individual basis, and factory placement decisions were not coordinated with each other. ³⁸ Despite this relatively chaotic planning, from an architectural point of view the 1919–1934 period is perhaps the most interesting period of Kyiv’s industrial development, since it was during that time that most constructivist-style industrial enterprises were built. ³⁹ Among the constructivist industrial structures built during this period were the “KRES” Kyiv district electrical power station, the “10 years of Komsomol” IV Shoe factory, ⁴⁰ the Rosa Kyiv Factory of Knitted Garments, bread-baking plant Number 4, and the Kyiv Film Factory (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Constructivist industrial architecture in Kyiv, with year constructed if available. 1: Kyiv District Electrical Power Station, or KRES, c.1930. 2: Bread-baking Plant Number 4, demolished 2012. 3: Number IV Shoe Factory, or “Ten Years of Komsomol” Factory, 1927–1928. 4: Rosa Kyiv Factory of Knitted Garments. 5: Film Factory, designed by Rykov, 1927–1929. Source: 1: https://pastvu.com/p/634586; 2: http://hmarochos.kiev.ua; https://bit.ly/39jksU; 3: Golovko 1962, figure 74; 4: https://www.retroua.com/year/1935/page/2/^; 5: Golovko 1962, figure 74.

Following Kyiv’s redesignation as Ukraine’s capital, the task emerged of developing a Kyiv general plan, the city’s first, to outline development objectives. This first general plan was created toward the end of the second national five-year plan in 1936. It was developed in just six months and approved after only two days of review. The 1936 general plan proclaimed the city’s development vector only five years into the future but fixed Kyiv’s course as an “exemplary socialistic city with industrial and transport value.” ⁴¹

Planning was a secretive activity in the Soviet Union. As land and economic activity was controlled by the state, planning was not the guide for market forces that it is considered today in capitalist countries. Instead, the general plan was just that: a centrally organized, conceived, and administered declaration of the location, content, and building form of state constructions. ⁴² The Soviet state had little motive to share such planning intentions with its population, since civil and property rights were not significant factors in the Soviet Union, so plans mostly remained secret. These top-down planning initiatives were technocratic in nature: plans were created and implemented by experts in planning institutes, which possessed monopolies on plan-making and plan administration.

Accordingly, Soviet general plan documents are difficult to find, even in today’s post-Soviet era. For our study, we were able to locate a folio of images from the 1936 general plan, ⁴³ but we were unable to locate the original documents of the 1947 general plan. ⁴⁴ The 1936 folio was located in the Central State Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine (Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi archive of gromaskyh organizatsui Ukrainy). This document was an A2 album by size and collected twelve schemes in around A0 format, organized by content. Part of the Explanatory Note to the 1947 general plan was identified for purchase in a different archive, but full explanatory reports for the general plan of 1947 were not available to the public in either the state and local archives of Ukraine nor could they be located in any of the institutions that once supervised general planning in Kyiv, including the Kyiv City Council, ⁴⁵ Dipromisto ⁴⁶ ; or Kyivgenplan. ⁴⁷ Ultimately, we were able to reconstruct general plan intentions for Kyiv’s industrial districts from the “Explanatory Note” of the 1936 general plan, ⁴⁸ and expert reports and part of the Explanatory Note for the 1947 general plan. Additionally, articles published in the magazines Socialist Kyiv and Soviet Ukrainian Architecture, an album with graphic materials, ⁴⁹ and electronic versions of the 1947 plan’s principal pages (http://genplan.kiev.ua/ist.htm) provided additional information.

1936 general plan proposals

The 1936 plan contents included an assessment of the city’s condition before reconstruction and a criticism of this condition, together with a list of planned industrial enterprises, locations for the greater part of these enterprises, a zoning plan, the projected sizes of potential industrial areas, and additional separate folio sheets, or “detail plans,” for selected city districts.

Soviet planners generally critiqued the form of cities constructed during Russia’s prerevolutionary capitalist era, and Kyiv’s planners were no exception. The planners for “new socialist Kyiv,” which included Pavel Khaustov (author of the earlier “Temporary Rules for the Reconstruction of Kyiv” ⁵⁰ ), and other planners like G. Golovko, V. Grechina, P. Yurchenko, I. Rodin, N. Gelstein, I., and I. Lipkes had actively criticized the prerevolutionary city form of Kyiv in previous articles published in Ukrainian architecture magazines. ⁵¹ These critiques of Czarist-era Kyiv were incorporated into the language of the 1936 general plan. Khaustov’s language was typical, excoriating the laissez-faire development of the czarist era: “The proletariat inherited a badly organized city territory. To a large extent, this is due not only to the fact that the capitalist planning of Kyiv passively adapted to the relief [city topography], but also to the whole historical development of the city.” ⁵² This critical position was supported by many of Kyiv’s intelligentsia. O. Simzen-Sychevsky, a historian and researcher, argued in 1938 that “in the feudal and capitalist times the city growth and development of Kyiv proceeded spontaneously, corresponding only with the landscape, [and] with the military and economic needs of that moment, while excluding even the smallest concerns about the interests of the population of working masses.” ⁵³

The 1936 general plan highlighted several “shortcomings” of the existing city form of Kyiv. The city fabric and the location of industrial plants within it were chaotic; the location of industrial enterprises adjacent to residential areas was problematic, causing environmental hazards; the city’s population was itself overly dense ⁵⁴ ; transportation connections and road capacity were weak ⁵⁵ ; the existing utility system of electricity and water was poor; and there was a lack of green areas and park space, with existing green areas being in poor condition. ⁵⁶

Responding to these perceived shortcomings, the 1936 general plan provided a response and a solution through a new physical plan for Kyiv (Figure 3). The plan constituted a substantial reorganization of the city’s physical structure in terms of land use separation, proposals for new industrial facilities, density shifts, transportation frameworks, ⁵⁷ city utilities, and open space provision and distribution. In terms of land use, the 1936 plan established city zoning districts, organized as industrial, dwelling, public and administrative, office, trade, and entertainment. ⁵⁸ Industry was foundationally reorganized, with new plants located in discrete industrial districts instead of scattered within the existing city, as before. The plan proposed relocation of existing industrial plants from the city center and high-density residential areas to these newly created industrial districts, many of which were at the city outskirts. Initiating an agenda for housing reform that would endure throughout the Soviet era, the plan proposed decreasing the city’s residential density from 800 people per hectare to 400 people per hectare. The grandest conception of the plan was in its proclamation of Kyiv as a “Garden City,” composed of inner and outer city green areas with parks, boulevards, dachas, garden squares, green buffer zones between industrial areas and dwellings, and even the landscaping of industrial territories (Figures 4 and 5).

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Figure 3.

Main sheet, general plan of 1936. Source: Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine.

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Figure 4.

Green space plan drawings in the 1936 general plan, showing the external green belt of Kyiv. Green areas inside city fabric denote parks and gardens. Above: Scheme published in Socialist Kyiv, n.1, 1936. Below: Scheme from the general plan of 1936. Source: Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine.

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Figure 5.

The general plan of 1936. Red lines show road network projected for subsequent ten to fifteen years, and large red area on the left bank shows a designated new city district. Source: General Plan of 1936, Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine.

Kyiv’s 1936 plan, while created within the highly hermetic confines of the Stalinist Soviet Union, shows clear analogies to contemporary plans being proposed for capitalist cities in the United States and Great Britain. ⁵⁹ 1936 general plan ideas like enlarged roadways, segregated land uses, lower-density residential areas, and greenbelts are consistent with the ideals of planners like Patrick Abercrombie, ⁶⁰ John Nolen, ⁶¹ and Clarence Stein. ⁶² While professional contacts between capitalist planners and Ukraine’s planners were unlikely, the conceptual links between plan ideas are clear. Today, this first general plan for Kyiv is held in esteem by contemporary scholars, who have deemed the plan to be beautiful and ambitious, if sadly underrealized. For instance, architect B. Erophalov observed that “from the architectural point of view the general plan has absolutist and classicist intentions, [but these intentions] turned out to be realized only to a small extent.” ⁶³ Some of the 1936 general plan’s implementation difficulties may have related to the difficult, hilly site of historic Kyiv as well as to the city’s topographical incompatibility with Soviet planning standards, which preferred tabula rasa, expansive locations.

The plan authors seemed to hold a paradoxical position about the value of Kyiv’s hilly landscape. Principal plan author Khaustov stated that Kyiv’s scenery was an important value, but at the same time, that this topography was the biggest obstacle for the city’s development:

The capital of Ukraine is located in an extremely picturesque but also very complex terrain in terms of relief. This scenery is the biggest lure of Kyiv … [but] there are natural obstacles for city development. There are [the] Dnieper [River], Kyiv hills, [and] areas with high level of groundwater. The Lybid valley ⁶⁴ is an obstacle for city development too, and calls for construction work and earthworks. ⁶⁵

Soviet Kyiv’s Industrial Districts and Kyiv’s General Plans

In 1935, Kyiv had 150 state enterprises and almost as many handicraft enterprises and other organizations. These industries employed about 77,000 people, of whom about 56,000 were workers ⁶⁶ (Figure 6). The city had nine industrial districts in total. These districts each contained industrial enterprises of mainly one type of production and occupied 870 hectares of the city’s territory in total. ⁶⁷

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Figure 6.

Past and projected statistics for enterprises and laborers as shown in general plans of 1936 and 1947 (diagram by authors).

The 1936 general plan comprehensively examined the condition of Kyiv’s industrial districts as they existed in 1935. Judging by the number of its industrial enterprises, Kyiv’s Central District was a bustling area. The district had twenty-four industrial enterprises, crowded onto only eight hectares. However, most industry in Kyiv was located in a variety of other industrial areas located at the city periphery, almost all on the right bank adjacent to the historic center (Table 1). In 1935, on the comparatively underdeveloped left bank of the city in the Darnytskyy district, 370 hectares were already occupied or designated for industrial construction. The vast scale of Darnytskyy, larger than Kyiv’s other industrial districts combined, reflected the scale of industrial development possible in this as-yet underbuilt, yet highly accessible, area of the city. In the north part of Kyiv along the Dnipro, the Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district and Priorka districts had the largest number of industrial enterprises, fifty-one in all, occupying 128 hectares. The 1936 general plan projected this district to have a projected 300 hectares, which would have made it the second largest industrial area on the right bank and the third largest industrial district in the city. ⁶⁸ Even before the 1936 general plan was issued, the Kurenivskyy district possessed important enterprises like the Kyiv Shipbuilding Shipyard and Ship Repair Plant, the Lenin Forge, ⁶⁹ and the Kyiv Leather Factory. The 1936 general plan located additional important industries there by transferring existing enterprises from the city center to new facilities in the district. The 1936 general plan also provided a detail plan of Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district principally authored by N. Gelstein, and a project for reconstruction of Kyiv’s river port that we will examine further below (Figure 7). ⁷⁰

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Figure 7.

The General plan for the reconstruction of the Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district from general plan of 1936. Much of this projected reconstruction was not implemented. Source: Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine.

Industrial districts in the 1936 general plan

Industrial development was a priority of the Soviet Union’s five-year plans: as Vice-Chairman of State Planning Grigoriy Grinko stated, “the pivotal part of the [first] entire Five-Year Plan [is to] make considerable progress in the conversion of the Soviet Union from a primarily agrarian to a predominantly industrial country.” ⁷¹ Accordingly, in Kyiv’s 1936 general plan, construction of housing, roads, and utility networks were all subordinate to acceleration of Kyiv’s industrialization. The 1936 general plan organized and concentrated Kyiv’s industrial enterprises in six districts, the scale of which was substantially larger than the existing industrial districts of 1935. The delineation of some of these districts even required expanding the city’s municipal limits. Six districts for industrial enterprises were proposed in the plan (Figure 8 and Table 2). The plan also proposed four additional, principally residential districts. Today, three of the six 1936 industrial districts—Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy, Telychansko-Korchevatyy, and Darnytskyy—are the largest in Kyiv. Although the form of these districts is not identical to that proposed in the plan, their scale today shows the 1936 general plan’s substantial influence on industrial development.

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Figure 8.

Diagram of industrial enterprise locations according to the general plan of 1936 and status of implementation (diagram by authors).

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Table 2.

List of Industrial Districts and Enterprises in 1936 General Plan.

I. Petrivsko-Kurenivskyy (new industrial district)

1. Pasta factory

2. Kobtsev factory (leather factory no. 6)

3. Factory of children’s shoes

4. Furniture factory

5. Car repair factory

6. Mill

7. Bread-baking plant

8. Lenin Forge II

9. Ceramics factory (factory of color ceramics)

10. “Ukrcablel” factory (cable factory)

II. Prioka (new industrial district)

III. Halitskyy (or Prykkzalno-Halytskyy)

11. Artem plant (mechanical engineering plant)

12. Atomat bread factory no. 4 (bread-baking plant)

13. Radio factory (radio equipment)

14. Plant “Filverta & Dedina”/“Red Digger”/AT ATEK

15. “Donat Lipovsky and Co” cooperation/Southern Russian Machine Building Plant/Lenin Forge I works

15.1. Plant Tochprilad/Kyiv Plant of Automation named after G. I. Petrovsky

15.2 Confectionery factory

IV. Zhovtnevo-Svyatoshinskyy

16. Film factory of VUFKU

17. Metallurgical and machine-building plant “Greter and Kryvanej”/“Bolshevik” plant

18. Gorky machine-tool works

19. Red Plugar (Robust Plow)

19. 1. Factory of musician keyboards

19. 2. Factory of pincers and instruments

19. 3. Factory of wind instruments

19. 4. Factory of steel per

V. Novostroenskyy: Additional district (new industrial district)

20. Factory of cinema chronology (Kyiv factory of cinema)

21. Shoe factory

22. V. Bozhenko furniture factory (V. Bozhenko wood-processing factory)

23. Dumbala plant/Dzerzhinskogo tram factory

VI. Stalin’sky

24. Brick factory

25. Bread-backing factory

26. Brewery

VII. Nikol’sko-Brovarskyy (new industrial district)

27. Textile complex of enterprises

27.1. Fine cloth factory

VIII. Darnytskyy (new industrial district)

28. Plant for generating a rubber

28. Rubber plan no. 1

29. Meat-packing plant no. 1

30. Meat-packing plant no. 2

31. Car repair factory

32. Darnytskyy car repair factory

IX. Telychansko-Korchuvatyy (new industrial district)

33. Gas plant

34. Tank farm

X. Chokolivka (new industrial district)

35. Stocking factory

Enterprises without address (the address was not mentioned in the archive documents researched for this paper):

35. Meat-processing plant

36. Lathe machine factory

37. R. Luxemburg knitwear factory

38. Chervona Huta glass-making plant

39. Dzerzhinskogo Avtomat plant

40. Brick factories (nos. 3, 7; nos. 9–10)

41. Shell plant (Red rubber)/Kyivgum

42. Book-magazine factory

43. Factory of counting control devices

44. Factory of art pottery/ceramic works

45. Factory of hats

46. Factory of road cars

47. Printing plant

48. Electrolamp plant (electrical appliance plant)

49. Telephone connection plant

Note: Map of districts and enterprises is in Figure 9.

The scale of the plan’s projected industrial districts, shown in Figure 8, was ambitious. The largest industrial zone in the city, on the lightly occupied Left Bank, would be the conjoined Darnytskyy and Nikolsko-Brovarsky districts, together comprising 700 hectares. On the right bank adjacent to the old city, the planners proposed the largest single district of all, Telychansko-Korchuvatyy with 400 hectares, for hazardous activities such as woodworking, oil and gas plants. The Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district, also on the right bank, was designated for chemical and light manufacturing enterprises on 300 hectares. Part of another district on the right bank was designated for 78 hectares of machine-building enterprises that were to be moved from the city center, while yet another district projected 65 hectares for industrial needs.

Ultimately, the 1936 plan nearly doubled the area dedicated to industry in Kyiv, from 870 to 1,620 hectares. Almost 95 percent of the city’s industrial enterprises were to be located in the six districts proposed in the plan. ⁷² This wholesale centralization and aggregation of Kyiv’s dispersed industrial activity was to be achieved by the tripartite strategy of constructing new industry within the plan’s six designated industrial districts, the transferring of industrial enterprises from other districts that could be redeveloped, the transferring of additional enterprises beyond the city limits entirely, and eliminating entire smaller industrial districts adjacent to residential neighborhoods, thereby permitting those neighborhoods’ expansion.

The Hlybochytsko-Lukyanivska industrial district on the right bank was a typical example of such consolidation. This smaller industrial district of 8.9 hectares was proposed to be eliminated due to its “unacceptably adverse effects” on the adjoining residential areas. ⁷³ The 1936 plan likewise proposed two other right-bank industrial districts for elimination as well. Overall, the 1936 general plan projected that during the third five-year Plan, foreseen for 1938–1943, that thirty-eight new industrial enterprises would be constructed and that forty to forty-six enterprises would be removed from the central part of the city. Ultimately, the 1936 plan projected a total of forty-four industrial districts in Kyiv, thirty-eight of which were new, and six of which were already existing.

The General Plan of 1947

After the devastation caused by the Nazi invasion and occupation of Ukraine during World War II, Kyiv’s industry was restored within four years, and new branches of industry also made their appearance. In 1947, a postwar general plan was issued that projected the city’s development up to 1960–1965. This plan (Figure 9) strengthened the city’s role as an industrial center, an effort that had begun under the first general plan of 1936. The 1947 plan project team consisted of Alexander Vlasov, Boris Priymak, and I. I. Malozyomov among others. These planners proclaimed the new, rebuilt Kyiv to be a complex of industrial and transport enterprises, residential areas, a rebuilt and heavily monumental city center, and widened street arteries. ⁷⁶ The 1947 general plan stated that its agenda for industrial enterprise development was motivated by population growth, by the necessity to increase production capacity, and by a desire to improve the environmental situation in the city. In response to these goals, the plan projected an ambitious industrial agenda to remove harmful industrial enterprises to areas outside the city and to relocate several former inner-city enterprises in five consolidated industrial districts (down from six districts in the 1936 general plan). These districts would also house additional enterprises (Table 1).

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Figure 9.

General “scheme” for 1947 general plan. Source: http://genplan.kiev.ua/ist.htm.

To some extent, the 1947 general plan corrected constructed elements of the 1936 general plan that had become obsolete or problematic. In an era of rapid population growth, industry that had been at the periphery of Kyiv a decade earlier was now enveloped by rapid metropolitan growth, motivating its removal in order to permit future growth of those industries in the event of expansion, and the separation of industrial land uses from residential areas. For example, the foundry shop of the Gorky machine-tool works, projected by the general plan of 1936 and then constructed, was projected by the 1947 general plan to be relocated from its initial site to an area outside the city. Other proposed industrial relocations doubtless referred to pre-1936 industrial districts whose previously recommended removal had not yet been implemented by the time of World War II. Overall, the 1947 plan proposed that thirty-one industrial enterprises relocate far from residential areas. ⁷⁷ This second wave of relocated factories, many of which had been created only within the previous ten years, illustrated the difficulty of planning for heavy industry in a rapidly growing city.

Consistent with Soviet concepts of aggregation and efficiency, the 1947 general plan reduced industrial production in Kyiv to five districts. Among these were the three large districts mentioned earlier, Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy, Nikolsko-Brovarskyy, and Darnytskyy, plus two others (Table 1). Four of these industrial districts remained from the 1936 general plan, while a fifth district, Demyivka, was newly designated.

Within these districts, new industrial areas were mostly located along the Dnipro river and along Brest-Litovsk Avenue (renamed Peremohy or “Victory” Boulevard in 1985). Brest-Litovsk is a major avenue leading westward from Kyiv, eventually arriving in Lviv, a major city in western Ukraine. Given the southward flow of the Dnipro and the existence of river pollution, the 1947 plan was sensitive to the placement of industrial enterprises along the river, as emphasized by a team of experts of the general plan of 1947 in their official report. ⁷⁸ The possibility of industrial waste flowing past the city made the location of additional industrial areas on the north of the city undesirable, and instead encouraged the implementation of new industrial areas toward the south of the city (i.e., downstream). Ultimately, an industrial area projected to the north of the existing Lenin Forge works, in the Podil neighborhood near the city center, was not constructed. This area was occupied instead by the large-scale Obolon rayon, or residential district, constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. To the south of the city center, the Telychansko-Korchuvatyy industrial district was constructed, growing rapidly (eventually more than doubling in size) following the issuance of the 1947 general plan. Today, this is one of the largest industrial districts in Kyiv.

Kyiv’s Industrial Districts Today: Tales of Transformation

How have Kyiv’s industrial districts transformed since their formation during the early industrialization of the Soviet Union? In particular, how have these districts transformed since the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the development of a capitalist economy in what was a wholly socialist city? Across Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, transformation of industry has been dramatic. The imposition of borders in what was formerly a unified command economy, and the imposition of market logic in what was formerly a planned economic system, has resulted in the diminution, obsolescence, and disappearance of many industries—a form of economic shock analogous to that which occurred in the United States and Northern Europe beginning in the 1970s. Other Ukrainian industrial enterprises have survived, though with often reduced activity. This overall decline in industrial economies has been devastating for smaller Ukrainian cities, many of which live today with substantial brownfields and large, mostly abandoned industrial plants. However, this transformation has been less drastic in large cities like Kyiv, where economic recovery has been more rapid since 1991. Instead, Kyiv presents a mixed picture, with some industrial sites abandoned and closed, some continuing to function, and some partially or wholly redeveloped.

In this section of the study, we provide short portraits of five industrial districts within Kyiv. These five were mentioned frequently in the professional and popular press of the 1930s and were highlighted in the explanatory report of the 1936 general plan. The five districts are the following: the Lenin Forge works (two locations), in the Halitskyy district and Petrivsko-Kurenivskyy district, the Bilshovyk works and the Gorky machine-tool works in the Zhovtnevo-Svyatoshinskyy district, and the Darnytsky car repair factory (DCRF) and complex of textile factories in the Darnytskyy district. All five represent implemented industrial facilities from the 1936 plan, except for Darnytsky’s complex of textile factories, ⁷⁹ and all five are machine industry enterprises. Understanding the trajectory of the physical history of these industrial works provides a window on the industrial transformation of Kyiv during the tumultuous eighty-plus years that followed the issuance of the 1936 general plan (Table 3).

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Table 3.

Major Works in the General Plan of 1936 and Their Status Today (2019).

Plant, Address	Years Built	Significance according to the General Plan of 1936	Implementation	2019 Production Status	2019 Fate of Buildings and Comments
Lenin Forge I, Voksal, Zhilyanskaya st	1886+	The plant was one of the eleven largest plants of the Soviet Union whose construction began in second five-year plan	Started in 1935 the Soviet project was partially realized and implied the demolition of prerevolutionary plant designed in twentieth century by famous Kyiv architect Horodetsly	Partially active	Today is utilized as a warehouses and pavilions spaces have been renting for the small business enterprises
Lenin Forge II, Rybalsky Island	1928+		1928–1931: erecting the first enterprise on the site	Inactive	The ongoing reconstruction of this area projects new residential districts with the demolition of all existing industrial buildings
Bilshovyk plant, Vadym Hetman st., 8/26	1882, rebuilt in first decade of 20 cent.	It was a sample factory for the landscaping of yard space	Started in 1930, the Soviet project was implemented	Partially active	The part of the plant is reconstructed and now used as a trade center, hotel, offices, and so on. Industrial buildings were transformed into the new function
Gorky machine-tool works, Peremohy (“Victory”) avenue, 67	1934+, rebuilt in first decade of 20 cent.		The Soviet project was implemented	Inactive	Partially transformed into business center “Nuvky.” Some of the industrial buildings were demolished, some transformed for the new functions
Darnytsky car repair factory, Alma-Ata street, 74	1935+	It would have been the largest, by number of laborers, factory in Kyiv	It was built during the second five-year plan. In 1936, the construction of the first stage was completed. In the postwar years, it was rebuilt, so only partially retained the original structure	Active
Complex of textile factories (project)	—	It would have been the largest textile factory complex in the Soviet Union	The complex was not implemented	—	The plan was to locate it near the already existing thin-wool and viscose works, between Novodnitsky and Darnytsky highways

Source: Authors’ field survey.

Bilshovyk: from industrial plant to pioneering shopping mall

In 1930, reconstruction commenced on a prerevolutionary machine tool plant located along the Brest-Litovsk highway. The Bilshovyk (Bolshevik) works were first established by Czech businessmen Yakov Greter and Yosyp Crivanenko in 1882. The reconstruction proposed the doubling of the plan’s industrial area and the shifting of production from repairing machines to mechanical engineering. ⁸⁰ Like other prerevolutionary industrial enterprises in Kyiv, the czarist-era factory that existed in 1930 was actively criticized by Soviet architects. In Socialist Kyiv, a propagandistic journal of that time, an aerial sketch from 1916 represented the factory in a semi-ruined condition. Author Gutman ⁸¹ argued that workers in Bilshovyk endured unacceptable conditions in narrow, muddy, and dark industrial pavilions. Contrary to the negatively portrayed prerevolutionary plant (Figure 10), Soviet architects designed a model factory at Bilshovyk which could not only produce high-quality machine tools but also symbolize socialist achievement for the working class. Additionally, based on the 1936 general plan’s general concept of increasing green areas and of building a “Garden City” in Kyiv, the project team realized a model recreation area at the Bilshovyk plant whose design was in accord with Soviet ideals of a socialist city (Figures 11 and 12).

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Figure 10.

Representations of old and new industry: the prerevolutionary in 1916 (left) and Soviet (right) Greater and Crivanenko plant in 1929. Source: 1,2: Horhot, A., Arhitektura i blagoustrojstvo promyslennyh predpriatij. Kiev: Izd-vo akademii arhitektury Ukrainskoj SSR (1953).

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Figure 11.

Images of the yard, or green space, in the Lenin Forge II. Source: Photo-album “Lenin Forge Plant. Kyiv 1896-1946”. Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine.

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Figure 12.

The Bilshovyk Plant yard in two periods. Left: Bilshovyk yard in the thirties. Right: Predecessor of Lenin Forge I, Donat Lipovsky and Co, 1900. Source: 1: Journal “Socialist Kyiv” (1930); 2: Iyevleva, V. (2008).

Following Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the Bilshovyk plant began to decline. Soon the severely troubled enterprise was privatized and tried to survive by producing rubber, processing plastics, recycling used tires, and renting empty pavilions for storage and small enterprises. But Bilshovyk’s biggest industry in the capitalist era would come from consumption, not production. In the second half of the first decade of the 2000s, a small portion—five hectares—of Bilshovyk’s thirty-five overall hectares were transformed into a shopping center, also called “Bilshovyk” (Figures 13 and 14). What was once a convenient area for workers, adjacent to a Metro line and surrounded by residential areas, became a convenient location for shoppers.

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Figure 13.

The boundary of the Bilshovyk plant over time.

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Figure 14.

Spatial evolution of the Bilshovyk plant area, 1925–2017 (figure by authors). Left, from top: the fragment of the general plan 1936; photo from 1940; orthophoto from 2000; photo from 2000; orthophoto from 2017; photo from 2017. Source (from left top to bottom right): Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine; pastv.vu; google map; https://en.wikipedia.org/; google map; https://en.wikipedia.org/.

The Bilshovyk transformation is comparatively modest: the majority of the Soviet industrial plant survives, with low-level activity continuing and most industrial structures still (2019) intact. The Bilshovyk mall occupies one corner of the site. There, two industrial pavilions have been repurposed, with two levels of shopping added to the interior, and parking and loading added on a basement level. Industrial imagery, and the site’s Soviet history and propagandistic name, became, for a time, symbols for capitalist exploitation by the private owners of the site. In 2017, the mall’s name was changed to “Kosmopolit” (“Cosmopolite”) to comply with Ukraine’s 2014 “Decommunization” laws, passed in the wake of the Maidan revolution’s expulsion of a corrupt, Russia-friendly regime. The mall’s owners also capitalized on the site’s convenient location by adding a residential slab and office tower adjacent to the transformed industrial pavilions along a principal street.

The Bilshovyk/Kosmopolit mall has become a popular place for the middle class in Kyiv for shopping and entertainment, in part thanks to the fact that this transformation was one of the first, if not the first, such transformations of an industrial facility in Kyiv. ⁸² Ironically, though the site’s Soviet past is (or was, until 2017) celebrated through imagery, the continuing existence of industrial production on the site, albeit at a low level, is not celebrated and is even made invisible by the segregation of the highly visible portion of the site dedicated to consumption. Whatever one thinks of a “Bolshevik” shopping mall, the paradox does illustrate a certain ironic dimension of Ukraine and the larger post-Soviet sphere’s process of recovery from state socialism. The possession of the name did, for a while, provide a limited lens on the past. Yet shopping center visitors, according to a 2012 study, were unaware of the current situation of a still working plant nearby, ⁸³ and an art museum placed in the shopping mall by the private owners was named after Greter and Krivanenko, the prerevolutionary plant founders. Thus, Bilshovyk presents a paradoxical window on Kyiv’s industrial past. As of 2019, much of its physical form survives, albeit nearly invisible, while the Soviet past and prerevolutionary farther past are, or were until recently, celebrated nostalgically, with little critical perspective.

Lenin Forge I, Voksal: Industry to offices at the “city gate”

Kyiv’s railway station, or Voksal in Russian, is a typically monumental group of structures constructed in the bed of the Lybid, a still existing, though sadly reduced, stream that flows into the Dnipro south of central Kyiv. The valley permitted easy construction of rail lines, providing the nearest proximity to the city center on Kreschatyka Street, and industry was quick to follow. An initial enterprise (Donat Lipovsky and Company) was established on a historically residential site called Zverinetsk, and in 1895, this enterprise relocated to a site directly adjoining the railway station, at the corner of Zhylianska and Symona Petlyury streets (Figure 15). The new industrial complex was perhaps designed by Vladislav Horodetsky, ⁸⁴ arguably the greatest and best known of Kyiv’s many outstanding architects of the turn of the century. Prior to the revolution, Donat Lipovsky, which would later be renamed Lenin Forge (Leninska Kuznya), was already one of the biggest mechanical and metalworking factories in the city. ⁸⁵

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Figure 15.

The boundary of the Lenin Forge I over time.

Like Bilshovyk, the first Lenin Forge was subject to architectural and ideological critiques of the prerevolutionary factory from the 1936 general plan committee, and like that factory, it was also reconstructed during the first five-year-plan. In the Soviet era, the territory of the plant was expanded at least three times. Lenin Forge also contributed to the transformation of Kyiv into a “garden city”: a square with flowerbeds and fountains was created on the plant’s grounds ⁸⁶ (Figure 12).

After Kyiv again became Ukraine’s capital in 1932, Soviet planners raised a question of the Lenin Forge’s architectural quality for two reasons: first, at that time the plant was one of the eleven largest plants of the Soviet Union, and it was therefore ideologically necessary for the plant to represent socialist industry; second, the plant’s prominent location adjacent to the railway station required the plant to have a contemporary appearance. According to publications of the time, the reconstructed pavilion would require a “cultural appearance”; in other words, an ability of the complex to inspire workers to labor and for the plant to symbolize the association of this labor with human rights and to express the honor of labor. ⁸⁷ Moreover, the design team in charge of reconstructing the plan projected an industrial square, also called Lenin Forge, that would connect to the Voksal’na (railway) square, adjacent to the station. Lenin Forge was thus the first industrial complex whose design attempted an integration of the industrial plant with its surrounding city environment, thereby representing a new city function—the industrial center—at Kyiv’s industrial-era “city gate” (Figure 16). Unfortunately for this integrative potential, the complex of new administrative buildings and Lenin Forge industrial square, all designed by the architect V. Onashchenko, was not realized.

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Figure 16.

Lenin Forge I on Zhilyanskaya street. Left: 1934 project for reconstructing the railway station square by architect Homenko. Top right: [1936] Project for the boiler department by architect E. Yakhnenko. Bottom Right: [1936] project of the administrative department. Source (from top left to bottom right): Lypkes. I., Construction of industry in Kyiv (Promyslove budivnitstvo v Kyive), 1934; others: Journal “Socialist Kyiv,” 1936, no. 1.

Today, Lenin Forge is no longer a symbolic gateway to the industrial era nor does the physical form of the Forge convey any sense of a complex whose design was once so important as to symbolize Soviet industry not just to Kyiv but to the entire Union. The Forge has shrunk in area both through conversion of industrial buildings and through demolition. What was perhaps visually the most important symbolic building, a low pavilion located along Symona Petlyury street leading to the railway station, was demolished midway through 2001. Vacant for almost a decade, the site was eventually occupied by a parking lot, permitting access both to rehabilitated structures behind and for a new bus terminal. Other portions of the Forge, opening onto the busy streets of Starovokzalnaya and Vokzalnaya, were spontaneously transformed into shops, cafes, warehouses, and offices. Some structures inside of the Lenin Forge site are still dedicated to production, and these structures have been designated local monuments needing to be preserved by the cadastral plan of Kyiv (Figures 17 and 18). If this preservation ordinance holds, at least some portions of Kyiv’s industrial gateway will remain to mark the existence of this once-significant complex. But the symbolic potential of the first Lenin Forge has been, at least for the moment, sadly diminished, replaced by the shops and parking lots of capitalist Kyiv.

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Figure 17.

The Lenin Forge I in four periods, 1925–2017. Like the Bilshovyk plant, the area dedicated to industrial activities is shrinking. Top left to bottom right: the map from 1925; photos from 1930; the general plan for the plan from1939; photo of the model; topo plan from 1980; photo from pavilion in 1980; orthophoto from 2017; photo of prerevolution pavilion remain up today. Source (top left to bottom right): “Vatra” publish company in Ukraine; map; pastvu.com; Kyiv State Archive; Photo-album “Lenin Forge Plant. Kyiv 1896–1946. Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine; unknown; Photo-album “Lenin Forge Plant. Kyiv 1896-1946. Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine; google map; wikimedia.

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Figure 18.

Photographs of Lenin Forge I in 2018. Source: Authors.

Lenin Forge II, Rybalsky Island: Twenty-first-century Kyiv’s development frontier

In the Dnipro River just adjacent to the Podil neighborhood is a large peninsula, once an island, called Rybalsky Ostriv (Fisherman’s Island). Rybalsky was shaped in part by the course of a right-bank tributary of the Dnipro called the Pochayna, which got its name from a fishing village located nearby in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the beginning of World War I, the island was still undeveloped. Industrial development on this peninsula, creating the complex that would be called the second Lenin Forge, commenced in 1928. The Lenin Forge II site would be one of the first to symbolize the transformation of Kyiv from a trade center to an industrial node of the entire Union. ⁸⁸ This enterprise would become famous not only thanks to its rapid development during the first five-year plan, thus symbolizing the success of the industrial command economy, but also by the achievements of its scientific and experimental laboratories. Similar to the Bolshevik Works, the Rybalsky Lenin Forge II developed improved engineering solutions related to the maritime industry. For instance, in 1931, an innovation led by Professor Evgeny Paton improved fastening mechanisms for ships produced at the plant (Figure 19).

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Figure 19.

Spatial evolution of the Lenin Forge II plant area, 1936–2017. Figure by authors.

The Lenin Forge plant was large and diverse, including shipyards, housing, administrative buildings, and several large sheds utilized for repair and construction. Connectivity to the island was poor until the 1960s, when a pedestrian bridge was constructed from Podil to the Forge site. This bridge carried thousands of workers each day by foot from Podil to Lenin Forge. Prior to the 1960s, the island’s urban pattern consisted of a combination of industrial and dwelling zones. The dwelling zone, with working-class quarters and barracks was located only seventy-five meters or so from the industrial zone, without the typically prescribed spatial buffer. These dwelling quarters with five story structures, smaller residence hall dormitories, and one-story barracks, together with former cultural and administrative buildings, remain standing today and unlike the former industrial structures are still in active use.

In 1994, the Lenin Forge II was privatized (https://zkr.com.ua), causing a decline in its production. Today, the site is a paradigmatic gritty, postindustrial waterfront landscape. The site is divided among several private owners, and connectivity to the city is once again poor due to the closure of the pedestrian bridge, as well as to construction of a waterfront highway in the early 2000s (Neberezno Rybalsky Street) that severed the Forge’s connection to the Dnieper. Lenin Forge’s accessibility is currently (2019) evolving. A long-delayed trans-Dnipro bridge was originally projected to continue as a limited-access highway across much of northern Podil. It would have further destroyed the districts’ connection to the Pochayna inlet. Instead, this bridge connector has been reconfigured to connect to Podil’s central Boulevard (Nyzhnii Val Street), thereby demolishing the stub of the Soviet-constructed pedestrian bridge. In its semi-abandoned state, the pedestrian bridge had become a popular gathering place for Podil’s informal artistic culture. With the highway completed, Podil will be “better connected”—but at a high price for pedestrian connectivity to Rybalsky Island.

Despite connectivity barriers, the Rybalsky Lenin Forge site is attractive to developers because of its proximity to the city center and to the Podil historic district. The large size of the site, around ninety hectares, adds to its attractiveness. Kyiv’s developer-friendly 2025 general plan has designated Lenin Forge for residential development in the form of towers and courtyard blocks. None of the industrial pavilions, almost all of which are surviving as of 2019, are projected to remain. Thus, Kyiv’s most significant and visible industrial waterfront site, with its monumental buildings, profound interior spaces, and diverse outdoor spaces, is slated to become another high-rise “business class” district. Dirigiste planning, which directed the creation of the second Lenin Forge, is now projecting the Forge’s erasure from the city landscape and from the people’s memory (Figure 20).

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Figure 20.

The Lenin Forge II in four periods, 1936–future. The plant is projected to be nearly totally cleared for new development. Source (top left to bottom right): the fragment of the general plan for Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy in 1936; orthophoto from 1934; photo of main alley on the plant from 1940; orthophoto from 2017; aerial photo from 2018; the project of the General plan in 2017; the visualization of the project. Source (top left to bottom right): Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine; http://starkiev.com/; Photo-album “Lenin Forge Plant. Kyiv 1896–1946. Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine google map; Egor Shtefan photo; https://buro.page/; https://buro.page/.

DCRF: A plant with an “exemplary” workers’ neighborhood

In order to implement their most ambitious industrial and residential projects, Soviet planners in Kyiv chose the flat, unbuilt left bank of the Dnipro, already linked to the right bank of the city in the 1930s by two railway bridges. ⁸⁹ According to their ambitious plans, the largest textile complex in the Soviet Union ⁹⁰ and the Darnytskyy (train) car repair factory (DCRF) should be located in this area. While the textile complex would remain unbuilt, the DCRF had been 90 percent completed through overtime labor in only three years prior to the 1936 general plan publication. ⁹¹ Today, the DCRF is part of the Darnytskyy industrial region, one of the three largest “modern” industrial districts in the city according to the 2020 general plan.

The general plan of 1936 projected both a large plant and a parallel residential district to be located next to the plant and accommodating around 250,000 people. ⁹² The district was constructed as a “city within a city,” with a full range of community facilities, connecting infrastructure (tram), and even a local newspaper. The plant was badly damaged in the war, and the postwar reconstructed plant did not retain much of its original structure (Figure 21). However, most of the residential district was preserved. The housing group has both historical and architectural value, consisting of several types of prewar and postwar housing models, including low-rise single-unit housing, low-rise multiunit housing, and four-story dwelling “panel buildings” of prefabricated elements. ⁹³

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Figure 21.

The Darnytskyy car repair factory in three periods, 1943–2017. The plant has grown tremendously over time and is today the largest industrial district in Kyiv. It is comparatively intact due to its remote location on the left bank. From left top to bottom right: orthophoto from 1934; project of the plant in 1934; topo plan from 1980; photo of the yard in 1936; orthophoto from 2017; photo of the plant from tram stop in 2019. Source (from left top to bottom right): http://starkiev.com/; Journal “Socialist Kyiv”, 1934, nos. 1–2. с.23; unknown; Journal “Socialist Kyiv”, 1936; google map; photo by authors.

The DCRF, as constructed by Soviet planners, played an extensive role in the industrial development of the left bank. ⁹⁴ The extensive plant established the validity of future development of this bank of the Dnipro (Figure 22) that would occur in this area from the 1960s onward. Today, the DCRF is operated by the State Administration of Railway Transport of Ukraine or “Ukrzaliznytsia” (https://www.uz.gov.ua/en/). The works itself and most of the built environment adjacent to it retain their Soviet-era appearance. Community facilities such as the workers’ tram station for the workers, the main public square in front of the works, a cultural center, schools and kindergartens, a water tower, and buildings for workers along Almatynska, the main street of the district, all remain intact. While the general atmosphere has a strong connection to the past, today differences are visible through small design elements like street vendors, new cars, and contemporary retail on the first floor of buildings. In the public square of the works, the Socialist context is dialectic: the former Lenin monument has a Soviet-era information plate, an artifact from the past whose 1934-era details are being slowly overtaken by Kyiv’s harsh weather.

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Figure 22.

Spatial evolution of the Darnytskyy car repair factory plant area, 1943–2017 (figure by authors).

Gorky machine-tool works: Catalyst for a new Soviet city district

On the western edge of Kyiv along the Brest-Litovsk highway, a complete workers’ neighborhood was constructed at the “Factory of automatic machines” in accord with the general plan of 1936 (Figure 23). The new plant and its residential area were placed on 130 hectares, converting the city periphery into a new city district. The two factory “working villages,” at DCRF and at the Gorky machine-tool works, were the first and most prominent examples of industrial plant residential areas, and both have remained exemplars of this Soviet settlement type in Kyiv to the present day (Ievleva, 2008). The social pattern for industrial city development, whereby a new industrial enterprise became a catalyst for an entire city district development, was established in Kyiv at these two plants. The Gorky machine-tool works was intended to transform the city land around the plant, formerly a village, and at the same time expand the city’s fringe through industry. The importance of Gorky’s implementation ⁹⁵ can be seen in the publication of a separate facilities plan for the Zhovtnevo-Svyatoshinskyy District within the general plan of 1936. Placement of this significant industrial enterprise firmly established Brest-Litovsk as a major urban axis of Kyiv, an exemplar of the Socialist industrial economy (Figure 24).

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Figure 23.

The Gorky machine-tool works in three periods, 1943–2017. The plant is currently being redeveloped for high-rise apartment buildings. From top left to bottom right: orthophoto from 1943; project in 1936; orthophoto from 1980; photo of pavilion; orthophoto 2017; photo from alley. Source (from top left to bottom right): http://starkiev.com/; Journal “Socialist Kyiv”, 1935: nos. 11–12; Pat Kyivproekt archive; unknown; google map; photo by author from 2018.

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Figure 24.

The boundary of the Gorky machine-tool works over time (figure by authors).

The Gorky works were organized by a clear spatial planning structure: a central allée of trees and pedestrian walkways, a sort of industrial boulevard along which were arrayed the plant’s pavilions. This allée, most of which survives today, provides a pleasant pedestrian experience, and the entire ensemble, including the central allée, the park landscaped with fountains and ornamental plantings, and the remaining cultural and administrative buildings convey the unique status of the factory during early Soviet industrialization. Some buildings, including the industrial pavilions, have decorated facades on their allée frontages, while more minimalist architecture is visible at these works’ back. The ornament indicates the conventional architectural approach of the first five-year plans, whereas in those structures constructed after World War II, decorations of industrial facades were subject to cutbacks.

Unlike DCRF, industrial production at the Gorky machine-tool works has collapsed in the post-Socialist era. The Brest-Litovsk road is convenient to central Kyiv, and the adjacent metro line, just a few stops from the city center, has made the area desirable for the high-rise development that was first brought to Kyiv by Soviet planners. The Gorky works are undergoing a range of spatial transformations, ranging from casual adaptation with small businesses to complete demolition for China-style “luxury” residential complexes. The large pavilions once used for in-line assembly are being demolished, and a large part of the plant adjacent to the Nyvky metro station has already vanished, with new high-rise buildings appearing on the site. ⁹⁶ The author’s site visit to the remaining industrial pavilions indicated that all the remaining structures are available for rent. Little of the original industrial activity would therefore seem to have survived.

The different building typologies of the early factory, ranging from large industrial pavilions to administrative buildings, allow for different types of postindustrial appropriation. The former industrial pavilions are popular for warehouses and automobile storage and administrative buildings for small and medium office space. A large banner in the entrance zone [Summer 2019] advertises a space for rent ranging from 30 up to 600 square meters. Of the once-great production capacity of the works, only two small pavilions are still operating: a secondary pavilion for metalwork and a heat treatment workshop are located on the site far from the metro station. According to a local worker, these small shops do work for other enterprises and are not part of the original Gorky works.

In the office of the managing company that occupies the former main administrative building of the Gorky works, a poster with architectural concepts for future changes is present. The architectural proposal would demolish everything from the past. The generically designed high-rises already constructed demonstrate little relationship to the site, an unfortunate portent for the future of this significant complex.

Increasing awareness of industrial heritage: Community mapping tool “Map Me Happy”

In Kyiv, three factors affect the demolition and abandonment of the city’s industrial legacy: safety concerns, economic viability, and lack of public interest in the issue. ¹⁰³ To these issues may be added the absence of any local city policy protecting Soviet (as opposed to prerevolutionary) industrial landscapes, ¹⁰⁴ and the near lack of public documents relating to these sites, due to their production under totalitarian governance (Figure 26). With the aim of illuminating the Soviet industrial legacy and shifting public attitudes about it to a more positive perception, the Map Me Happy initiative (Mapmehappy.com.ua) was established through the collaboration of the international architectural festival CANactions and the European Geography Association (https://egea.eu/) in 2014. Map Me Happy permitted and encouraged citizens of Kyiv to convey their emotions about specific sites in the city, by providing a straightforward interface of a large city map, and annotatable adhesives. This project was triggered by the designers’ sense of the public’s lack of acquaintance with the Soviet built environment, a negative attitude regarding urban issues that is common in postsocialist countries.

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Figure 26.

Top: A sample of community perceptions of Kyiv’s ex-industrial landscape, from the Map Me Happy project (mapmehappy.com). Bottom left, right: A temporary intervention in the “Tyhiy Hid” (One Small Step) project, 2014, in the Telychansko-Korchuvatyy district. Photo by Andrew Mykhailov.

The methodology of Map Me Happy grows from theoretical and conceptual grounds in urbanism that were established by American researchers in the Modernist and Postmodernist eras: Lynch’s Image of the City (1960), Jacobs’s Death and Life of Great American Cities (1962), Venturi and Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Rowe and Koetter’s Collage City (1978), and contemporary urbanist Campo’s Accidental Playground (2013). With this theoretical work in mind, this social digital tool might depict the real uses still occurring in underused industrial areas, understand their current, socially constructed value, and perhaps most importantly, collect people’s stories and memories for sites and in a society that had previously vastly undervalued the same. Ultimately, Map Me Happy takes a critical first step toward the introduction of participatory urban design methods to the industrial landscape of Kyiv.

Temporary occupation and do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism: “Tyhiy Khid”/“Quiet Move,” for example, “One Small Step”

In 2014, a collaborative project between international architecture festival CANactions and cultural festival Gogolfest touched upon the subject of reactivating industrial space with a multidisciplinary effort. A diverse team of urbanists together with festivalgoers and local stakeholders created a temporary public space at the Dnipro shore, adjacent to an abandoned “river station” constructed in the Soviet era for passenger ships. This was previously an invisible space, hidden behind fences. Situated in the large industrial Telychansko-Korchuvatyy district, the site is located just a fifteen-minute walk from the metro Vydubychi, with a beautiful view that juxtaposes successional nature and an industrial landscape. With an extremely small budget and crowdsourcing of additional funds, this space, called “Tyhiy Khid” (a “quiet move,” or small step), was transformed through “DIY” construction. Participants explored the potential of this area to see whether it could exist as a public space (Figure 26).

As the main task, the team addressed the newly discovered access to the river, defining a key factor for the redevelopment of the gritty, industrial Telychansko-Korchuvatyy district. After the residency, the boat station came back to its routine, functioning as a river station with only limited access to the public. While the future of the territory is not clear today (2019), future public access as a catalyst for all district development was designated in a revitalization project for Telychka by architectural firm Zotov&Co (http://www.zotov.com.ua/en/). Although “Tyhiy Hid” does not literally “map on” to Map Me Happy, ¹⁰⁵ this and other DIY or temporary Kyiv urban spaces could be MMH’s potential logical extension. Temporary occupation of hidden but beautiful industrial sites could become the next step in exploring, improving, and testing public perceptions of the Kyiv landscape.

KARZ-12: “Stand-in” occupation in industrial buildings under transformation

The last case study of emerging scenarios for industrial districts is nearby the aforementioned Lenin Forge II (Rybalsky) works, in the Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy industrial district. With close proximity to the vibrant and historic Podil district, rich with youth-related activity and cultural organizations, this former industrial area has experienced much alternative development since Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution. CEDOS, a local urban think tank office, has recently written that the Podil district is thriving with numerous local public initiatives (informal cultural institutions and start-ups) and that Podil is serving as a venue for the emergence of civil society in Kyiv in general. ¹⁰⁶ One of the most compelling projects in the Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district includes a multidisciplinary platform for cultural initiatives called the “Port Creative Hub,” a cultural platform called IZOLYATSIA (https://izolyatsia.org/en/), a cultural center called MetaCulture (https://www.metaculturekyiv.com/), the KARZ-12 group described below, and several art galleries (Figure 27). Beyond these uses being geographically located together in the large Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district, these cultural activities share an attitude of celebration of Soviet architectural and urban heritage through rehabilitation of its legacy, holding public programs to enhance civil society and bring together like-minded creative class members, and expressing a certain level of creative practice through collective action.

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Figure 27.

Top: The Kyiv shipbuilding and ship repairing plant with buildings occupied by cultural industries highlighted. Bottom: KARZ-12 participants and events. Source: Authors (top left); http://karz-12.com.ua/ (top R, bottom L, R).

In the beginning of 2019, a new alternative scenario for industrial urban space was pioneered in Kyiv. Four “urban initiatives” comprising a mix of for-profit and nonprofit urban and design practices—Agent of Changes (http://a3.kyiv.ua/), Urban Curators (https://urbancurators.com.ua/), Hmarochos (https://hmarochos.kiev.ua/), A+C (https://apluss.pro/)—relocated their offices to the former Kyiv automobile repair works, otherwise known as KARZ-12 (http://bit.ly/32c4sRz), in the Petrivsko [Podilsko]-Kurenivskyy district. According to a methodology for temporary projects suggested by European agency Urban Catalyst, ¹⁰⁷ KARZ-12 is a stand-in scenario. Signing a short-term lease for office rent and a multifunctional space for events, the team of four firms aims to capture the current industrial value and contribute to the future of this area as a residential district by suggesting mixed-use scenarios. Having no formal mandate, the team acts as a group of activists rather than as formal actors.

Their short-term value of KARZ-12 is undeniable. In its small time in existence, it has held several public events. Nevertheless, this stand-in scenario is today being affected by typical shortcomings of temporary uses that have been described by different scholars. These are vulnerability, ¹⁰⁸ the risk of almost no influence on long-term spatial transformation, ¹⁰⁹ and proportional mismatch, where an informal scenario struggles for “formalization” within a context where the district is under active top-down transformations, rendering the informal project potentially considered naive and ineffective.